Hope in the Last Days of World Ocean Month

Veta Wade, founder of Fish ‘n Fins Inc., a non-profit organization based in Montserrat that provides youth across the Caribbean with opportunities to learn about local marine life, climate mitigation, and ocean safety.

We are in the final week of World Ocean Month, a month dedicated to raising awareness for the environment and biodiversity of the Earth’s ocean, and to embrace the unsung World Ocean Month heroes inspiring progressive change.

As pioneering environmental organizations led by Latinx leaders, Azul and Corazón Latino are counting down the final seven days of World Ocean Month 2020 by spotlighting an ocean champion of color each day.

These are Black, Brown, and Indigenous champions who are protecting the ocean and communities who depend on it from the worst consequences of ocean-climate inaction. They include community advocates, organizers, marine biologists, educators, and policy specialists; and they are part of the global majority fighting to protect our ocean, coasts, and, most importantly, communities whose lives are interconnected with the ocean as a food source, a provider of life.

These champions are working at the intersections of racial, social and economic inequities and climate and environmental degradation to create sustainable solutions and make a difference for lives and livelihoods, expanding on science, protecting biodiversity and so much more. They give us a reason to hope, and the resources to fight.

Follow Azul and Corazón Latino on Facebook and Twitter to get to know Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Veta Wade, Sheridan Noelani Enomoto, Carlee Jackson, Whitney Tome, Kalina Browne, Marce Gutierrez-Graudiņš, and other World Ocean Month heroes. It’s critical that our youth of color, families, and the advocates we work alongside see role models who look like us that are creating change, especially as low income and communities of color bear the greatest burdens and health consequences of inaction on climate change.

Feeling inspired? Share the joy with the #HopeInOcean and #HopeEnOcean hashtags to spread the work of these ocean heroes and to spark a call to action within the next generation of ocean stewards to protect people, biodiversity, and the planet.

Are you an ocean champion? Tag Azul and Corazón Latino in your post and share with your network today!

About: Betsy is Chief Strategist at López-Wagner Strategies and serves as the Strategic Communications Partner for ALRAS Digital. She’s committed to supporting the growth of an inclusive and equitable conservation movement to strengthen global, national and state-level priorities to protect our environment, democracy, and above all, people — especially those on the frontlines of an increasingly warming planet, rising ocean and climate injustices.

#HopeInOcean project graphic design: Rebecca Lopez, www.rebldesigns.com
#HopeInOcean proofreading: Alfredo Ramirez, www.alrasdigital.com